Genuine people’s power is on the retreat in Europe, and it's under attack from those who most loudly claim to be “democrats.”

Last week we saw the unelected EU foreign policy chief, Baroness
Ashton, meeting the new unelected Ukrainian “president,”
Aleksandr Turchynov, who came to power following a violent
overthrow of that country's democratically elected president –
with the rebellion backed by the EU.

The hailing of a foreign-backed coup d’état in a country where
fresh elections were only 12 months away as a “victory for
democracy” was truly Orwellian. The wishes of the 2 million
people who marched against the Iraq war in London in February
2003 were arrogantly dismissed, but the protesters in Maidan,
though far fewer in number, simply had to have their way.

Ukraine, though a dramatic example, is not the only European
country where democracy has been suspended in recent years.

In February, Matteo Renzi became Italy's third successive
unelected prime minister. You've actually got to back as far as
2008 for the last time an Italian prime minister was
democratically chosen by the Italian people.

From November 2011 until May 2012, Greece also had an unelected
prime minister, Lucas Papademos, a former vice-president of the
European Central Bank.

In Hungary, the unelected businessman Gordon Bajnai was the
country's prime minister from 2009 to 2010.

You'd have thought there would have been a massive outcry about
these undemocratic developments in three EU member states, but
there wasn't – at least certainly not from the European elites.

What's going on? Why is democracy now on life support in Europe,
that's if it isn't dead already?

The economic changes which have occurred in the last 30 years or
so have played a major part.

The era of neoliberalism has seen political power shifted from
ordinary people to the 1 percent. Today, even in European
countries where the prime minister has been elected, governments
follow policies aimed to suit and please the all-powerful global
financial elites, as they know that if they upset them, they are
likely to be forced from power. The introduction of the Euro as a
single currency has undoubtedly made things worse, but even
outside it, for example in Britain, democracy has been adversely
affected by the impact of turbo-globalization.

The main parties of the left and right have become neoliberal and
as friendly to capital as they possibly can. At elections we're
faced with a choice between parties offering hard-core austerity
and privatization, slightly less hard-core austerity and
privatization and reasonably hard-core austerity and
privatization. Yes, parties which offer real alternatives, such
as George Galloway's Respect Party in Britain, do exist, but they
are deliberately marginalized with their leaders branded as
“extremists” and routinely smeared by establishment
gatekeepers.

The reality is that only parties which accept neoliberalism can
be considered for government and only politicians who genuflect
to big business and finance capital can be considered for prime
minister. The links between big business and government keeps on
getting closer and as a consequence democracy is smothered. We
saw a clear example of that in Ukraine, where the new
'democratic' administration in Kiev announced the appointment of two billionaire
oligarchs to govern industrial regions in the east of the
country.

It's all very different to how things were 40 and 50 years ago.
Back then, western European voters had a real choice of
alternatives: Socialism, De Gaulleism, social democracy,
old-style Christian Democracy, communism, and traditional
conservatism were all on the menu for us to choose from. Politics
was interesting as there were real differences between the
parties- and proper grown-up debate about important issues.
Instead of bland technocrats in identikit suits, simply doing
whatever keeps Goldman Sachs happy we had charismatic, conviction
politicians who inspired their people with their visions for
their country – the likes of De Gaulle, Kreisky and Palme. The
trend was for greater democratization, not less: in the mid to
late 70s, probably, the high water mark of democracy in western
Europe, Spain, Portugal and Greece all returned to democracy
after years of dictatorship.

It's interesting to reflect on what was possible in the
pre-neoliberal era.

Forty years ago in Britain, voters elected a Labour government
pledged to bring about “a fundamental and irreversible shift in
the balance of power and wealth in favor of working people and
their families.” They succeeded in reducing the gap between rich
and poor to its lowest in British history. The Labour governments
of 1974-79 extended public ownership, put the top rate of income
tax up to 83 percent and introduced a state earnings related
second pension. If we compare the truly socialist Labour manifesto of February 1974 with the far from socialist one of
2010 we can see how much things have changed.
(And we shouldn't expect the 2015 Labour manifesto to be much
different either). As I mentioned in my last Op-Ed piece in the 1979 Austrian General Election,
Socialist Chancellor Bruno Kreisky said he'd rather his
government run up a deficit than people lose their jobs. As a
result, the Socialists were re-elected with 51 percent of the
vote.

Of course, there were flaws even before the neoliberal era, but
as a whole, governments reflected majority public opinion much
more than they do today. This democratic age was a period of
great advances for ordinary people, who saw their living
standards rise by the fastest rate in history. In the famous
words of British Conservative Prime Minister Harold MacMillan,
people had “never had it so good.”

Woe betide the European government today that dares to “do a
Kreisky” and put the interests of its people ahead of
bankers and foreign capital. Just look at the opprobrium heaped
on Hungary, whose democratically-elected government has been
trying to bring its energy sector back into public ownership to
bring down prices. The Hungarian government received a letter
from the EU attacking its policies in October. European Union
energy spokesperson Marlene Holzner gave Hungary a lecture,
warning that their plans to cut prices would deter foreign
investors: If the consumer price fails to reflect the actual
price businesses will likely not enter this market because of the
expected low profit.

Since the 1980s, and particularly in the last decade, European
politics has become Americanized. Important topics like
renationalization are deemed “off limits” but we are
allowed – in fact encouraged – to talk and debate issues that in
no way adversely affect the bankocracy or elite interests, such
as same sex-marriage reform.

As in America, we're persuaded by the elite to fight culture
wars, so that we don't have the time and energy to fight the
elite. We used to joke about how little difference there was
between Democrats and Republicans, how they were just two wings
of the same pro-big business party and be thankful that in Europe
we did have more choice. Little did we think that one day
European politics would be the same.

The EU, for all its spiel about “promoting democracy” has, like
the US's badly misnamed National Endowment for Democracy, played
a key part in destroying genuine democracy. All over the
continent people are protesting over Troika-imposed austerity
programs, but there is no establishment support for the
protestors in Western Europe, even though they have been much
more peaceful than their Maidan counterparts.

We saw a classic example of the EU's contempt for democracy when
the people of the Republic of Ireland had the temerity to vote
'No' to the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum in June 2008. Ireland
was pressurized to hold another vote, a year later. The EU
approach is if you don't vote the 'right' way, ie the way we
want, you have to keep on voting until you do. “Just look
what happens when we vote No,” bemoaned anti-Lisbon
campaigner Eugene Gorman, “They make us vote again!”

Also note the attacks on democratic non-EU member Switzerland for
having a referendum on immigration and voting for curbs. The
European elite were furious. How dare a country in Europe ask its
people directly what to do? “The Swiss have damaged
themselves with this result. The fair cooperation we have had in
the past with Switzerland also includes observing the central
fundamental decisions taken by the EU,” warned German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius warned that the EU would have to review its
relationship with Switzerland.

The point about the Swiss referendum is not whether we agree with
immigration curbs, but whether we believe countries have the
right to make their own decisions on this and other issues. But
today's European elite hates countries – and the people of those
countries – deciding for themselves. In February EU Commission
vice-president Viviane Reding questioned whether British people
would be able to make an “informed decision” on EU membership.

The greatest irony is that as Europe has become less democratic
so European elites have become more vocal in lecturing others on
democracy. “Democracy promotion” has been become a big business
at a time when people power has been snuffed out at home.

Only a radical reform of the EU, or its total abolition, together
with the ditching of the neoliberal model which transfers
political power from the ballet box to the wallet, can reverse
the damaging trends. For if the organization which dominates
Europe and the economic system under which the continent operates
is fundamentally undemocratic, how on earth can genuine democracy
exist?

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.